Head-up displays (HUD) and head-up guidance systems (HGS) have been used effectively for aircraft pilots and in other vehicles as an aid to provide information to the pilot or vehicle controller while not requiring the pilot to take his eyes off the outside environment. Further, head-up displays have been used to augment and enhance the outside environment by placing conformal information on the head-up display.
Head-up displays have been widely used in aircraft landing systems, flight guidance systems, and the like. However, standard usage and displays associated with these displays are not always applicable to all operating modes of all different types of aircraft. In particular, for a rotary wing aircraft transitioning from forward to flight to near hover conditions, it is very likely that that flight path vector traditionally displayed will depart from the field of view of the HUD. Accordingly, there is a need for information having to do with hover and touchdown operating modes such as that which would be used during takeoff and landing, to be provided on the HUD. Further, for an aircraft with the capability for coupled hover, there is a need for a HUD displaying the non-conformal flight path vector and vertical velocity to satisfy the hover capture criteria. Yet further there is a need to provide this information in a single head up display such that the pilot is not required to look at a different displays for the information.
It would be desirable to provide a system and/or method that provides one or more of these or other advantageous features. Other features and advantages will be made apparent from the present specification. The teachings disclosed extend to those embodiments which fall within the scope of the appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the aforementioned needs.